The peaceful border between the U.S. and Canada is in danger of being overrun by over-the-top providers who are giving U.S. television programmers a way to bypass the traditional Canadian broadcasting process and present their wares above the 49th parallel. This invasion, a Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) report said, threatens the way Canadian television exists and prospers.
In a convoluted pricing scheme, more U.S. programming delivered over-the-top by Netflix (Nasdaq: NFLX) and others of its ilk would draw revenue and viewers from Canadian companies and negatively impact their ability to support Canadian content.
"The more the viewing shifts to on-demand, the bigger the slice that OTT gets, the better able OTT is to get better programming and the less revenue Canadian broadcasters will have to buy the foreign programming that is their competitive advantage," communications lawyer and engineer Peter Miller wrote in a report titled "Developments in the Canadian Program Rights Market 2011."
For more:
- The Wire Report has this story
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